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The Savannah Concert Association and the Savannah Friends of Music present The Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra Celebrating its 25th Anniversary, the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra will be presenting memorable events through the season. At this concert they will perform the magnificent Second Symphony of Gustave Mahler, "The Resurrection," scored for orchestra, chorus, and soloists. It will be the first performance of this masterpiece in Savannah. The Savannah Choral Society will be the guest artists in this presentation. The Society is establishing themselves as one of the region's finest choral ensembles. Formerly known as the Savannah Symphony Chorus, they reorganized in the fall of 2003. It is an all-volunteer group of eighty singers from Savannah, Hilton Head, Statesboro, and surrounding counties. With this masterpiece, Mahler expresses his personal faith that all mankind will rise to eternal bliss in the glory of God. Music of incomparable beauty is testament of his belief. Mahler, one of the greatest composers of his time, lived from 1860 to 1911. During his final illness in November, 1907, he conducted his farewell concert in Vienna. The program was the "Resurrection" Symphony. This will be the first performance in Savannah. CONCERT #3 - NOVEMBER 18, 2006 Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Savannah Chorale Society Laura Sutton Floyd, Soprano — PROGRAM — Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection" - Mahler — INTERMISSION — Urlicht - (Primal Light) PROGRAM NOTES Gustave Mahler's First Symphony was completed in March, 1888 and its successor was begun almost immediately. He conceived the new work as a tone poem, though he inscribed his manuscript Symphony in C minor/ First Movement. He had no idea what sort of music would follow. The next five years were ones of intense conducting activity, but in 1892 he found inspiration to compose again in a collection of German folk poems called the Youth's Magic Horn, and he set four of them for voice and piano. Resuming work on the Second Symphony, he used two of the Wünderhorn songs as internal movements. On July 16th he completed the orchestral score of the Scherzo, and only three days later, Urlicht (Primal Light) for the mezzo soprano solo was completed. By the end of the month the Andante, newly conceived, was finished. At the end of the summer of 1893 the first four movements of the Second Symphony were done, but Mahler was still unsure of the work's ending. He envisioned a grand choral close, much in the manner of the triumphant ending of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. On February 12th, 1894 Hans Von Bulow, the great conductor, died. He had been a close friend and mentor of Mahler, and the younger composer was greatly saddened by the news. At Bulow's memorial service, Klopstock's profound poem, Resurrection, was recited, and Mahler was immediately struck with inspiration. He rushed to his apartment and exclaimed to a friend, "I have it! Resurrection, yes, Resurrection!" Three months later, six years after it had been started, Mahler completed his monumental Second Symphony. Mahler himself wrote of the emotions driving this Symphony. "1st movement. We stand by the coffin of a well-loved person. His life, struggles, passions and aspirations once more, for the last time, pass before our mind's eye. — And now, in this moment of gravity and of emotion which convulses our deepest being, our heart is gripped by a dreadfully serious voice which always passes us by in the deafening bustle of daily life: What now? What is this life — and this death? Do we have an existence beyond it? Is all this only a confused dream, or do life and this death have a meaning? — And we must answer this question if we are to live on. "2nd movement — Andante (in the style of a Ländler). You must have attended a funeral of a person dear to you and then, perhaps, the picture of a happy hour long past arises in your mind like a ray of sun undimmed — and you can almost forget what has happened. "3rd movement — Scherzo, based on St. Anthony of Padua Fischpredigt. When you awaken from the nostalgic daydream [of the preceding movement] and you return to the confusion of real life, it can happen that the ceaseless motion, the senseless bustle of daily activity may strike you with horror. Then life can seem meaningless, a gruesome, ghostly spectacle, from which you may recoil with a cry of disgust! "4th movement — Urlicht (mezzo-soprano solo). The moving voice of naïve faith sounds in our ear: I am of God, and desire to return to God! God will give me a lamp, will light me to eternal bliss! "5th movement. We again confront all the dreadful questions and the mood of the end of the first movement. The end of all living things has come. The Last Judgement is announced and the ultimate terror of this Day of Days has arrived. The earth quakes, the graves burst open, the dead rise and stride hither in endless procession. Our senses fail us and all consciousness fades away at the approach of the eternal Spirit. The 'Great Summons' resounds: the trumpets of the apocalypse call. Softly there sounds a choir of saints and heavenly creatures: 'Rise again, yes, thou shalt rise again.' And the glory of God appears. All is still and blissful. And behold: there is no judgement; there are no sinners, no righteous ones, no great and no humble — there is no punishment and no reward! An almighty love shines through us with blessed knowing and being." THE HILTON HEAD SYMPHONY ORCHESTA THE SAVANNAH CHORAL SOCIETY MARY WOODMANSEE GREEN Ms. Green has conducted professional, community and festival orchestras and choruses in Europe, the United Kingdom and the Middle East, at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Wilmington’s Grand Opera House. LAURA SUTTON FLOYD JOSEPHA GAYER
Tickets $35, $25, $12.50 For a free brochure of the 2006-2007 season, email name & address to eoliver524@comcast.net Special Note: Reduced rate subscriptions are still available for 5 or 7 of the
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